Email Alerts

We Need You to Ask Governor Brown to Protect LGBT Youth from Dangerous Psychological Abuse

September 11, 2012

Soon, California Governor Brown will consider whether to protect LGBT young people from the psychological abuse inflicted on them by deceitful mental health professionals who falsely claim to be able to change their sexual orientation or gender expression.

Senate Bill 1172—authored by Senator Ted Lieu—will stop mental health professionals from harming young people with these dangerous practices, which include the use of shame, verbal abuse, pornography, and even aversion training.

And this is where we need your help.

You can end these abusive practices—which cause long-lasting depression and have far too often resulted in young people taking their lives—by telling the governor that you want him to protect young people by signing the bill into law.

It is well settled by the legislature and the courts in California that sexual orientation is not changeable. Yet presently, California is allowing state licensed professionals to make false claims that they can change sexual orientation by subjecting youth to these dangerous practices.

Young lives are at stake, and we want to be sure they are protected from the serious harm caused by mental health professionals who repeatedly tell them that they are bad because they are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender.

The National Center for Lesbian Rights is a proud co-sponsor of SB 1172 along with Equality California, Gaylesta, Mental Health America of Northern California, Lambda Legal, and the Courage Campaign.

This is the most important bill we’ve ever worked on.

We can’t turn our backs on young people, especially when all it takes is a few minutes to either tweet the governor directly at @JerryBrownGov (using the #SB1172 hash tag), call his office, or send an email using the sample text below.